


His Sons

by TsarinaTorment



Series: Fluffember [9]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Family, Fluff, Fluffember 2020, Gen, Melancholy fluff, Music, Post-Series, eight years is a long time, fluffember, yup that tag's back again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27484231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsarinaTorment/pseuds/TsarinaTorment
Summary: Jeff had been gone eight years.  He’d missed his sons growing up into young men, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still the same boys he’d left behind.
Relationships: Jeff Tracy & his sons
Series: Fluffember [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996258
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	His Sons

**Author's Note:**

> Fluffember eventually happened - day 9 ‘familiar’ also nudging its way into my Familiar Strangers series because I love exploring Jeff and everything that might happen post-series. It’s nearly 4am, there has been even less proof reading than normal, and I’m not entirely sure this makes any sense, but I had fun writing it so it’s out here anyway.

There was no sound in space. For the past eight years, almost everything had been muted; his own breathing echoing inside his helmet the only thing he heard for days on end.

That was a figure of speech. There was no _day_ and no _night_ in the Oort cloud; too far from the sun, planetoids too inconsistent in their movements. Just dark, dark silence. He hadn't known how long it had been, until he saw his boys again. His beautiful, grown up boys standing like the strong young men they'd grown up to be.

He'd missed it. Years of their lives, gone and never to be recovered. There were some home videos, footage he devoured whenever his mother brought it to him, but they were few and far between. They'd thought him dead, he learned. No point making videos a dead man would never see.

It hurt, if he let himself think about it too much. His sons had given up. They'd been _right_ to – he'd seen _that_ footage too, heard the stories of teenagers driving themselves into the ground before being dragged, kicking and screaming, into acceptance. Jeff didn't blame his sons one bit, but that didn't stop the pain, sometimes.

But he watched his sons now, young men he couldn't be more proud of, and found himself thankful that no matter what had happened through those eight years, they'd found him. They'd _saved_ him, brought him home in an impressive feat that should have been impossible.

He'd always said there was no such thing as impossible. He'd thought he'd known, then, what limits really were. Looking at his sons, the things they'd done, the things they _did_ , every day, showed him that he'd never really understood what it meant to do the impossible, before.

It scared him. His sons were brave, unrelenting, compassionate, but no parent enjoyed watching their children in danger. Yet here he was, stuck at the desk, watching as Scott threw himself out of planes, off of mountains, with nothing but a jetpack and finite fuel. Virgil ran shoulder first into burning buildings, seconds from collapse, while Gordon hurtled through the deepest depths of the ocean. Alan and John, following in their foolish father's footsteps, flirted with the dangers of space constantly, seemingly unconcerned that a single tear in their suits would kill them.

He hadn't understood that, either. Nine years ago, naïve and full of bravado as he poured money into an endeavour to save people. It had never been for the glory, but that didn't change the fact that he hadn't realised how much danger the operatives would be in. Not until the Zero-X. Not until he came home and read mission logs and medical reports telling him exactly how many times he'd almost lost a son.

In that, the ignorance of life in the Oort Cloud seemed like a blessing. He hadn't understood the real danger, didn't get to watch his sons flirt with death. Now, he saw it all, helpless to do anything except ground them over comms and hold them when they came home – dirty, exhausted, sometimes injured, but _alive_.

The world he'd left behind was nothing like the world he'd returned to.

Except some things were still the same.

By the desk – _his_ desk, for all that Scott seemed to have developed an autopilot towards the seat, and when particularly drowsy had in fact sat on top of him once or twice – stood the piano. Lucille's, once, Virgil's now.

After a long day, a hard rescue, or just when maintenance wasn't so demanding, his middle son would settle on the stool and begin some warm-ups. Scales, arpeggios, simple repetitive ditties that took no concentration to get right.

Gordon was always first. Barely before the first scales were finished, he'd appear from nowhere – often with hair dripping wet, suggesting 'nowhere' was actually the pool – lounging against the side of the piano with an expectant grin on his face. Scott would follow, whatever he'd had in his hand – once paperwork, now more likely a book after Jeff had forcibly reduced his eldest's workload – discarded somewhere in the sunken area of the den as he leant over the piano, head propped up on an open palm.

John's entrances were silent, more often than not a hologram shimmering into view from a holoprojector that now lived on the lid. Jeff often didn't notice him arrive, but by the time Alan stumbled into view, often half-asleep or semi-engrossed in virtual reality as he slumped against the piano, the second eldest was always there.

It was the same as it had always been. Virgil at the piano had never failed to summon all of his brothers – Gordon first, then Scott, and Alan with John slinking in unnoticed somewhere in between. Only once the five of them were all assembled would Virgil move away from warm-ups and let his fingers pick out something more complicated.

Some days, he had sheet music in front of him. Jeff didn't always know those pieces – new additions to the repertoire in the last eight years. Other days, it was all played from memory, songs that reminded Jeff of before, and also Before, when they were a family of seven and it was the mother, not the son, summoning the family for an hour of music.

So much had changed, in those eight years he'd lost. Sometimes he despaired under the weight of all the differences, all the things he'd missed, things he should know but _didn't_. But he hadn't lost everything; some things had stayed the same, grown or evolved with the same root. It had been eight years but the single, unchanged fact was that they were still his sons. Scott, protective leader. John, quietly observant. Virgil, calmly grounding. Gordon, mischievous prankster. Alan, brightly hopeful.

Eight years hadn't changed that.


End file.
